Over the past weekend, four Iowa polls showed Trump’s campaign stalling and then losing the lead to Dr. Carson. Our poll data analysis predicted this over a month ago, for reasons that we’ll note below, and now the first national poll confirms that it isn’t just an Iowa phenomenon, as many Trump supporters have alleged. Monday, the CBS/New York Times national poll of Republican voters showed Dr. Carson, for the first time, taking the lead over Donald Trump, 26 percent to 22 percent. Going into the third debate two of what many believe are Trump personality bugaboos, defensiveness and denial, are rearing their ugly heads as he argues that the debate won’t be fair and then denies the new polls numbers, reportedly arguing that the media “continues to report fictitious numbers,” and even blames Iowan’s for his troubles. In fairness, Trump subsequently admitted that he was in second place in Iowa. Today, Wednesday, October 28, Texas and Oklahoma poll results were published. The Texas poll showed that Trump’s earlier lead was...

This past week’s polls show some serious Donald Trump slippage. A deeper look into the polls suggests that his problems go well beyond losing the lead to Dr. Ben Carson in Iowa and Wisconsin. In today’s post we will show why his campaign is in real trouble. For the Democrats events of the week suggest a big Hillary win. Now for the details. Polls, released Thursday and Friday, indicate that Dr. Ben Carson has surged ahead of Donald Trump in Iowa. Monday, the Monmouth poll showed that surge continues. A Wisconsin poll also shows Dr. Carson moving into the lead there. Trump’s spectacular, and unconventional campaign, until now, had resulted in him taking a sizable lead in both state and national polls. There were, however, clear warning signs that his campaign had hit a wall–at a polling level well below the majority needed for nomination. We’ll look into what these signs were, but first note the reasons so many political pundits had expected his campaign to implode. This will provide the background for the data...

Thursday, October 22. New State Polls from Iowa and Wisconsin: Carson overtakes Trump. Rubio moves up. Quinnipiac’s poll in Iowa and the Wisconsin Public Radio/Norbert poll in Wisconsin spell bad news for Trump, upswings for Carson and Rubio. First the bottom line data. Carson has pulled ahead of Trump in both Iowa and Wisconsin, by 28 percent to 20 percent and 20 percent to 18 percent respectively. Rubio has moved up in both polls, garnering 13 percent in Iowa and tying Trump for second place with 18 percent. More detailed analysis of the Iowa poll’s raw data is even more problematic for Trump’s campaign. For even though he leads Carson in terms of who can better handle the economy, taxes and illegal immigration, fully 30 percent of those polled chose Trump as a candidate that they definitely could not support for the Republican nomination. (Bush was second in this to-be-avoided negative category with 21%). Only 4 percent chose Carson. Women and social conservatives gave Carson a big boost. Respondents who identified...

Who “won”–by no means the most important bit of information to come out of the debate–is relatively easy to assess. What would a panel of unbiased debate judges say? Hillary clearly “won”. Sanders wasn’t particularly good in terms of going beyond the straight jacket that his reputation has created. Nonetheless, I don’t think he did anything to lose his core supporters–or to woo supporters away from Hillary. Those are the headlines. But the potential catch is in the details of the story. Those going into the debate as marginal candidates–Chafee, Webb and O’Malley–came out pretty much as marginal candidates. Should any drop out, they likely would be Chafee and Webb, who had very small niche support and did nothing, in my mind, to change that. O’Malley might stay in as the “loyal oppositions,” on the chance of gaining some of Hillary’s marginal support should the upcoming Benghazi hearings critically wound her. Could O’Malley otherwise pick up a few points in the polls? Possibly, as an alternative to the top...